Spanish feds mend website clobbered by Anonymous

Prime ministerial bodyguards outed by hacktivistas

Spanish national police have reactivated their website following attacks by hacking supergroup Anonymous.

The assault on policia.es on Thursday coincided with the publication of the names of 30 bodyguards working for Spanish prime minister Jose Rodriguez Zapatero. The hacktivists also threatened to reveal mobile phone numbers and other details of the Special Operations Group (Spain's equivalent of Special Branch), ABCreports (en Español). It's not immediately clear how the hacktivists got their paws on the sensitive data.

Anonymous called for the resignation of Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, the Spanish interior minister and the Spanish socialists' prime ministerial candidate for the November 2011 general election in Spain, over his alleged mistreatment of austerity demo suspects, Movement 15-M.

In June, Anonymous propelled a series of denial of service attacks against the policia.es website in a protest over the arrest of three alleged ringleaders of the activist group.

In other hacktivist news, Anonymous is planning to occupy Wall Street, starting on 17 September. The peaceful protest campaign was inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, and protests in Spain and Greece against austerity measures.

Aside from expressing anger at the influence of major corporations on the government and demanding a "plurality of voices" in forming political policies, it's unclear what the objectives of the protestors might be. ®